I have only ventured here once before and I come in peace. While I am loud, boistrous and obnoxious over in the next room (winged things) and have about 1,500 posts, I come here quietly, humbly and with hat in hand to request the help of you good and talented gentlemen of the ground. I say talented because armor builders tend to be superb finishers of models, a skill I lack in considerably.
To to the point, I received a review copy of the fairly new 1/16 Eduard Schwimmwagen today. The only AFV experience I have in thirty-odd years of modeling (started when I was six), is one paltry, ancient, very basic Tamiya M-41 Stewart tank. However, I learned quite a bit about sun bleaching of the OD finish and how to spray gradations of fading, among other things that are second nature to armor modelers.
My question is, does anyone have any experience with this Schwimmwagen kit? It looks like a fine kit, and I look forward to doing something different, which is why I asked for it with my regular monthly shipment of new Eduard aircraft kits, PE stuff and accessories I review for a British publication. Eduard kindly obliged and when I opened the box I wondered where this had been all my life. Great molding, excellent fret of PE parts, the soft synthetic rubber tires even have hard inner tubes!
And, talk about thorough, I don’t know if this is common on AFV’s with windows, but the pre-cut mask for the windshield front includes a fat rainbow-shaped cutout on it if you want to mask off the arc made clean by the sweep of the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Who woulda thunk it? I wouldn’t begin to know how to make a wash to simulate the muddy water residue that would be required to use that mask to cover the clean part of the windshield.
Any building tips? Mistakes made by the kit maker I should know about? And finally, any good references you can point me too on this vehicle, especially online?. I’m going to do the multi-colored scheme, I believe, since I think I’m stuck with using one of the kit’s decals and one of the two markings and color schemes, which are downright gaudy for an AFV. Can anyone recommend a good paint and the proper colors for the three-tone scheme of desert yellow, a brown and a green. That’s as specific as they get. Eduard uses those annoying Japanese paint callouts, and I’d rather use Polly Scale or something else that I actually have access to.
Thanks for your indulgence, armor fellows.
TOM
Hi Sharkskin, fear not the Dark Side. It sounds as though you have a great kit on your hands. I haven’t heard of it myself, though there is a rumor that they are working on a Hetzer. Anyway, we use Tamiya Buff to simulate dust and that would be good for the windshield. Tamiya Dark Earth is used for a more muddy look. I use burnt umber artists oils mixed with mineral spirits for my washes. As for the paint I use Tamiya Dark Yellow XF 60, Dark Green XF 64 and Red Brown, XF 61. Good luck and I look forward to your Schwim.
Many thanks. I hope I’m not too embarrassed to post it here. That would be ironic, since all this time I’ve been yacking on the a/c side, giving out all this advice, when I haven’t had the means to post a single photo of my work until just recently. The irony would be if the first photo I’m ready to post was on the armor side. But I’m not sure. Let’s see how it turns out. At least the pieces are a size in keeping with my clumsy fingers.
This is a nice kit by the standards of any subject in scale modeling. I certainly have enough experience modeling wheeled vehicles to know that. And we use burnt umber oil washes for aircraft was well. Hey, oil spilled is oil spilled, regardless of what it’s spilled on. Tamiya Buff gloss-coated I use to simulate clear doped linen on WW I aircraft, and I am familiar with the other Tamiya colors you suggest as well because they are used on several a/c camo schemes, so you’ve really made it easier for me.
I’m especially looking forward to actually using some PE parts that have some meat to them. These aren’t the little fiddly, delicate thingies I’m used to, but big, well-etched grills and panels with screw heads to scale and other nice metal touches. The tires are the best I’ve ever run across on any model, and those inner tubes really took me aback. Though you can’t see them, it was a great solution to the problem of a heavy model sitting on soft rubber tires. I tested this system with my fingers only, and the inner tubes are just enough smaller than the tires that surround them, that the vehicle weight should make them flatten just to scale. I like it when model designers use their heads.
Now, if I can just make mine work, perhaps this project will too. Again, thanks armor guys, and any more input or advice for me or pitfalls to avoid in AFV modeling would be appreciated. The only reference books I have are some review copies of the Osprey tank modelling series, having received the first four volumes as review copies. But that’s not help here. I also have a few review copies on armor that come with the Squadron/Signal aircraft books I get at the beginning of the month. I recently got a Walk Around book on American half-tracks. Perhaps someone can email me if they want to trade an a/c book they don’t need.
TOM